Corrie creator's jail fear

THE creator of Coronation Street has spoken out about the prejudice he faced as a gay man writing the soap in the Sixties. Tony Warren was openly gay before decriminalisation in 1967 and says he lived in fear of what was going to happen to him. He said: "I never went past Strangeways jail without thinking, `Is that where I'm going to end up?'

THE creator of Coronation Street has spoken out about the prejudice he faced as a gay man writing the soap in the Sixties.

Tony Warren, who wrote the original episodes back in 1960, was openly gay before decriminalisation in 1967 - and says he lived in fear of what was going to happen to him. Speaking at a debate on whether Corrie is now the `queerest soap of them all' in Manchester, Tony described the attitude of people around him at Granada at the time.

He said: "I never went past Strangeways jail without thinking, `Is that where I'm going to end up?'

"Although I was out to other gay people at Granada, it was almost unwise to let people know."

Tony said that although `a lot of creative people at Granada didn't care', he did face a barrage of homophobic remarks from some staff.

"On one occasion I sat there and listened and listened until I got to my feet and said, `I have sat here and listened to three poof jokes, an actor described as a poof, a storyline described as too poofy, and I would just like to remind you that without a poof you wouldn't be in work'. One of them said, `but Tony, we didn't mean you'. I said. `You call my brothers, you call me'.

"I didn't know I felt so strongly until that moment, and from then on I never pretended to another soul that I was anything other than what I am."

The debate, at Manchester's Cornerhouse cinema, also featured current Corrie writers Jonathan Harvey and Damon Rochefort, as well as the soap's Antony Cotton, who plays camp knicker stitcher Sean Tully.

When asked if Corrie is now the queerest soap of them all, Tony said: "Maybe now, yes. But we lagged disgracefully behind for a long time. But now, we're hopefully queer enough."

Tony said that when he first began to write the show it would have been inconceivable to include a gay character. Instead, he used the language of characters he met in Manchester's gay village in the speech of characters like Elsie Tanner.

He said: "The gay village is not new. I'd known all these queens in the village. Some of them were sensational. I remember giving Elsie lines they would say. When you think of some of the things she came out with, how many straight women have you heard say that?"

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